About Broken Land Dreams by David Forbes
Broken Land Dreams, with its fragments of dreams, poems, lyrics, reflections, and social commentary, defies a conventional linear narrative. Part I is the background in which Jacob Traum, a grumpy, Brooklyn, retired high school social worker and meditating lefty boomer, first tells us his wife Maya has left him and warns him he needs to recover from himself. He describes the puzzling and socially unjust things he broods and dreams about that contribute to his grumpiness and emotional absence.
In Part II, which is most of the book, the surreal story begins. Jacob, with the help of his dreamt-up, gender-fluid, hired power with superpowers from the future, Xen Kohen, embarks on a Dante-esque, pandemic-era personal journey. In Hell Inc. he is confronted by, then manages to escape three right-wing rats, leaders of the Ratocracy conspiracy—Ratty Ghouliani, Ayn Ratnd, and Pete the New York Pizza Rat. The rats seek revenge by infesting his former high school with Ratocratic values and plan to take over Brooklyn. With the help of his Park Slope (Purgatory) men’s group, the Brooklyn Codgers, and his former high school students’ socially conscious meditation group, the BK Dream Team, newly imbued with their own superhero powers, Jacob must face himself as well as the Ratocrats in a final showdown to reach Heaven (the Brooklyn Botanic Garden), save Brooklyn, and earn back Maya.
In our post-pandemic and Trump-redux era, this re-telling of Dante’s cosmic journey of self-discovery will appeal to many of us facing an uncertain future and to those who appreciate a fable in which truth, love, and Brooklyn-style dreams triumph over meanness, greed, and fake news—and New York rats.
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Author Bio:
David Forbes is an Emeritus Associate Professor in the Urban Education Doctoral Program at the CUNY Graduate Center. He taught School Counseling in the School of Education at Brooklyn College/CUNY for nineteen years. He studied psychology and counseling at UChicago, the New School, and UC Berkeley. David teaches and writes on critical and integral approaches to mindfulness within neoliberal society and education and has consulted with New York City schools on developing social mindfulness programs. He wrote Mindfulness and Its Discontents: Education, Self, and Social Transformation (2019), Boyz 2 Buddhas: Counseling Urban High School Male Athletes in the Zone (2004), and False Fixes: The Cultural Politics of Drugs, Alcohol, and Addictive Relations (1994). He and Ron Purser co-edited the Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context, and Social Engagement (2016). He has played mandolin in bluegrass bands and is looking to jam with others. David lives with his wife, Iris Lopez, an anthropology professor who teaches Latino/a Studies at City College/CUNY. They live in Brooklyn.